to find a real ship. And what a ship she is: when Karl Kortum located her on the River Platte, 80 years old and converted into a scow for transporting dredge spoils, the locals refered to her as “el gran velero,” i.e., the great sailboat. As a sailing ship, she once called in the New York harbor . . . Erie Basin, to be exact . . . in January 14 1895, arriving in exactly three months from Taltal, Chile. Yup, that was pre-Panamax of any sort. She stayed in the sixth boro, albeit the Bayonne side of it, until March 21, 1895, when she sailed for Calcutta . . . making a passage of just over four months. As to cargo, I’d wager nitrates to New York, and petroleum product (kerosene) to Calcutta.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp. The info on the ship Wavertree aka el gran velero comes from the fine book called The Wavertree, published by South Street Seaport in 1969, the year she arrived in NYC.